preparing song medleys

[mm6]

I am new to Audacity and not great on a computer. I can do basics like deleting sections and pitch changes but that's it. I lead a Seniors singing group and want to cut together songs to make medleys. Can anyone point me to a section in one of the manuals or give me some tips to help me.
thanks

[kozikowski]

How do the songs exist now? Have they been sung yet? Are they a pile of music files?
Koz

[mm6]

They re all CD's - easy to download into Audacity. I can cut one but then i just don't know how to cut another and then add it on.

[kozikowski]

easy to download into Audacity.

Or maybe not. If you have "real" Music CDs (that play in your car), then you have to rip the music back to computer files. The music on a Music CD is in special space-saving, odd format. You can easily use iTunes for that. Set iTunes preferences to capture CDs to WAV, not one of the compressed and damaged formats.

Then Import each song into Audacity. They will appear one above the other in a vertical stack (and all play at once). Use the SOLO and MUTE buttons to turn each one on and off and the Time Shift Tool (sideways black arrows button) to push each track later or sooner -- left or right on the timeline. If you do it right, you line up the beginning of song two with the end of song one. Song three at the end of song two, etc.

Audacity will mix down the show to standard stereo when you Export. Use WAV export. Only use MP3 if you're going to email the show or put it on an MP3 player. If you have a "real" iPod, still use the WAV export and use iTunes to compress the show to AAC for your iPod.

If you're going to make a new Music CD, remember that a Music CD will only hold 78 minutes of performance and it doesn't matter what you do with the music or files beforehand.

Koz

[kozikowski]

There's ways to get really fancy with this, but that's the first layer. See where you get stuck. That's years of experience in four paragraphs. Koz

[mm6]

That actually sounds very clear to me. I'll give it a go tomorrow. Thanks so much!